


Sing Little Bird

by project_canary



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-24
Updated: 2019-10-09
Packaged: 2020-10-27 12:46:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20760593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/project_canary/pseuds/project_canary
Summary: Robin never liked Nancy Wheeler, never wanted to associate with her or her kind. Goody-two-shoes, put together, sweet...never in a million years would they mix. But it’s not every day that Nancy Wheeler come into the movie store and asks questions about secret russian transmissions.





	1. The Radio

_End of October, 1985_

The newspaper lay open on the countertop, and Nancy stared at it like she could will it to burst into flames. It was almost 5 in the afternoon, and everyone besides her was out of the house. Everyone else had places to be. And sad, poor Nancy was stuck searching through the “help wanted” section of the newspaper once more, hoping for something, anything to get her out of this house. She huffed, resting her chin on her hands as he leaned on the fading counter. This place had been her home for as long as she could remember. Her life was here.

Hawkins had a funny way of wrapping it’s comforting grip around its inhabitants and squeezing the life out of them until the only thing that was left was someone else entirely. She could feel it happening, feel the life, feel her drive leaving her. The thought of becoming her mother crossed her mind for the second time this month, but she quickly pushed it aside, shaking her head as she straightened up in her seat, grabbing the edge of the newspaper once again and pulling it in front of her, under the light. There had to be something she missed.

“Bzzzt!”

Nancy spun around, her heartbeat quickening at the sudden sound of static. It was muffled, but the quietness of the house made the noise seem like an explosion. She held her breath, wondering if she had imagined it.

“Bzzt!” Again, the now familiar noise of static seeping in through Mike’s radio. Strange, she thought, that he hadn’t brought it on whatever adventure he was off on. Nancy exhaled, closing her eyes. She had trouble these days relaxing. Whether it was the stress of finding a job of the weight of the worlds she felt gripping her shoulders, Nancy was much more high strung than she had been at the beginning of the summer. The quiet of the house wasn’t a reprieve; if anything it left her too alone with her own thoughts. With Johnathan at least, they could talk about...things.

But he was gone, and Hawkins still had its grip around her throat.

A muffled voice spoke on the radio in Mike’s room. It was deep. Deeper than Will’s, unless he had finished puberty much faster than everyone else, and Johnathan shouldn’t be home for another two hours to talk. Annoyed at whoever was trying to get through, Nancy stood, pushing the chair back under the counter before striding out of the kitchen and up the stairs, flinging open the door and grabbing the radio and pushing the button. She opened her mouth to tell the person to shut it, but paused, her head feeling light.

The voice wasn’t completely clear, but the person was talking incessantly in a monotone voice. And they weren’t speaking english. She released the button on the side of the radio, letting her hand fall to the bed, the blanket’s cushioning its fall.

“Russian.” She whispered, her mind moving a million miles an hour. Quickly, she released the radio and jumped up from the bed, running to her room and grabbing the cassette player, rummaging through her tapes. It had been a gift from Johnathan before he left, and he promised that he would be back some day to get it back. “C’mon, c’mon,” she mumbled in anger, searching for anything blank. She grabbed a Blondie tape, groaning in frustration. This would have to do. She returned to Mike’s room, sticking the tape in the player and hitting record.

She waited, almost wished that the person would stop talking, laugh and say “gotcha!” but they kept droning on, and on and on, and when Nancy was sure that they had repeated themselves, she hit _stop_.

Now all she had to do was find someone that spoke Russian. She ejected the tape, crossing off Blondie and walking back to the kitchen, stuffing the tape into a paper bag and rolling over the top. Keeping the bag gripped tightly in one hand she headed back up to her room. She pulled her hair back into a bun and changed out her blue shirt for a pair of brown slacks and a off-white short sleeve button up. Unfortunately her mother and father had taken the car. Fortunately, there was still a bike left in the garage.

Embarrassing, but Nancy had no other choice. She paused in the doorway between the kitchen and the hallway, knowing that the newspaper was still there, mocking her from the counter. Nancy didn’t look back.

The late August sun was hot, but this far into the afternoon the heat had died down, leaving a warm breeze and the soft smell of growth and the promise of some night rain. Sun filtered through the trees as Nancy rode down the street, the hot air filling her lungs as she pushed the bike faster, the tape rattling in the basket in front of her.

The trees lining the street became more sparse, houses replaced by shops, streetlights and sidewalks filling the space where grass was. As a car passed by, Nancy turned left, finally seeing her destination in the distance. The parking lot was half full, people getting out of work trying to find some entertainment of the night. The neon sign that read “Rentals” buzzed and flickered on as Nancy pushed the glass door open, the bell above the door ringing. A woman stood, her back to the front, as Nancy approached.

“Excuse me, I’m looking for Steve?” Nancy panted, still winded from her bike ride.

“Steve’s out,” the girl snapped before turning around to face Nancy. “Oh.”

“Hi Robin,” Nancy politely greeted. Robin popped the gum in her mouth.

“Nancy Wheeler.” 


	2. Déjà Vu

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Robin never liked Nancy Wheeler, never wanted to associate with her or her kind. Goody-two-shoes, put together, sweet...never in a million years would they mix. But it’s not every day that Nancy Wheeler come into the movie store and asks questions about secret russian transmissions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this one is so short!

Robin twirled the pen between her fingers, her elbow leaning on the counter. It had been two hours since her shift started and in that time one person had come in, asked for the “color version of Casablanca” and then left in a fuss when she told them it didn’t exist. Steve was out, with a cold or on vacation or something else important like that. Robin hadn’t asked the details when Keith told her she was doing a solo weekend shift. She scribbled in the margins of the newspaper, drawing a moustache on the picture of the new mayor. She was supposed to be browsing the jobs section. Another job meant more money, and more money meant less time here in Hawkins. Robin wanted out. Her mom always called her little bird, but now she was trapped in the cage.

“No job hunting at work,” Keith breathed over her shoulder, crunching something cheesy and powdery between his teeth. Robin grimaced, lowering her shoulder and turning to get away.

“Keith, gross.” His eyes watched the movement with half interest as he hunched behind the counter. “Besides, no one’s here right now, what’s the harm.”

“Company policy,” He chewed loudly. Robin could hear Steve’s voice in her head. _Screw company policy._

“Fine.” She rolled her eyes, closing the newspaper and shoving the pen back next to the register. The cart of returned movies stood unmoved by the shelves. Might as well try and work.

When she was little, Robin always dreamed of something magical and crazy happening in her life, some fairy godmother or talking animal that would whisk her away from Hawkins so she could never come back. She wanted to travel and see the world and meet people. She just didn’t want to be here. In Indiana. Where people were old and tired and backwards and things felt wrong all the time. It was too small and cramped and despite everything that had happened this summer with the mall and…

She needed to leave. There wasn’t a future in Hawkins for her. The movie she was holding dropped to the floor and she snapped back to the store, to the smelly rug and the musty air and the hot sun beating in through the front glass. She exhaled, bending down to grab the movie and placed it back on the shelf.

“Robin, get back to the front,” Keith yelled from somewhere in the tiny store, and Robin fought the urge to yell back something obscene. Instead she rolled the movie cart to the side and walked behind the counter, grabbing a stick of her gum from under the register and spinning around to finish filing paperwork. She could hear people milling around, and she glanced at the clock. 5:45. Closing was in 15 minutes and then she was free. The bell rang behind her and she groaned internally.

“Excuse me, I’m looking for Steve?” The voice was high and there was a familiarity to it that made Robin’s hair stand on end. No matter who it was, she didn’t want to turn around.

“Steve’s out,” She threw over her shoulder as she met eyes with Keith, who was glaring at her for not attending to the customers. Robin stuck out her tongue and spun around. “Oh.”

“Hi Robin.” Nancy smiled politely, her eyes flitting everywhere as she seemed to bounce from foot to foot. She was breathing heavily, her cheeks still red and her hair just a little out of place. Robin blew a bubble, popping the gum in her mouth.

“Nancy Wheeler.” Nancy finally met Robin’s eyes, and Robin was struck with how blue they looked in the late afternoon sun, the way that they seemed to reflect light like a summer sky. But there was something darker lurking behind them.


	3. The Message

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Robin never liked Nancy Wheeler, never wanted to associate with her or her kind. Goody-two-shoes, put together, sweet...never in a million years would they mix. But it’s not every day that Nancy Wheeler come into the movie store and asks questions about secret russian transmissions.

The air between them was thick, dust particles dancing in the sunbeams that had made their way through the open blinds. Words unspoken since the summer. Robin tapped quietly on the glass counter, and Nancy gripped tighter to the brown paper bag in her hand.

“Do you know when he’s going to be back?” Nancy was anxious. Steve was the last person in town she trusted enough to go to, the last person stuck here that would understand, the last person she really wanted to see, but he was the only option. Robin didn’t look particularly interested.

“He didn’t say. Want me to leave a message?” Robin shifted from one foot to the other, and Nancy quickly thought over her own options. Nothing sounded promising.

“No, it’s fine really, it’s...kind of urgent,” Nancy grimaced at her own lame sounding excuse. “I’ll just,” Nancy turned to go, her ponytail swishing behind her.

“Wait,” Robin called, remembering Steve’s words. Not really. “Is there anything I can do to help?” Robin may be one for holding grudges, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t willing to change. Nancy spun back around, her eyes lighting up.

“Do you speak Russian?” Robin laughed and held her tongue. She wasn’t pulling the pig latin line on Nancy Wheeler.

“Uh, not really,” Robin apologized. “But I can try?” she shrugged. Nancy quickly glanced around the store.

“Can we go somewhere private?” Robin looked at the clock.

“I’ve got 5 minutes.” Nancy’s shoulders fell, and Robin peeked behind her, at Keith at the computer in the back room. “But I can clock out early.” Robin smirked, and Nancy smiled back. Her face glowed when she smiled, and she looked like an entirely different person. Not the stuck up, priss from school. This was the Nancy that knew how to shoot a gun and took care of her friends and put herself in danger to save everyone else.

Robin grabbed her long sleeve from under the desk, tying it around her waist as she slid over the counter to meet Nancy.

“Ready.”

The parking lot was still full as they walked over to Robin’s car, Nancy walking the bike to the old looking sudan. Robin unlocked the trunk, offering hands as Nancy lifted the bike in.

“Thanks,” Nancy briefly met Robin’s eyes before glancing away. Her hands were cold as they shoved the bicycle into the back. Robin slammed the trunk and the two got into the car, Robin getting the key in and turning over the ignition. For a second, it seemed as if the car wasn’t going to start but it choked to life, and Robin breathed a sigh of relief.

The cab of the car muffled the sounds of the world outside, the warmth feeling good in the early autumn air. Nancy unrolled the top of the paper bag, reaching in and grabbing a regular looking cassette tape.

Okay,” she whispered, her hands almost shaking as she pushed the cassette into the car’s player. There was a burst of static before a voice began to speak and Robin’s blood went cold.

_“...Tsarstvovaniye Tsarstva podkhodit k kontsu; Obernite ranu plotno, krov' prosachivayetsya skvoz'; Goluboy drakon goloden pod belym nebom…”_

Robin felt like her insides were going to turn inside out. She was frozen in her seat as the voice repeated over and over again the message. It was the same voice she had heard months earlier, when it was just a fun game, before she was kidnapped, before...

She gripped tighter to the steering wheel, trying to steady her breathing. Nancy hit stop, and the tape popped out of the radio.

So?” Nancy sounded hopeful, like Robin would be able to just rattle the translation off the tip of her tongue.

“I can’t,” Robin sounded close to tears. “I can’t do it again. I’m sorry.”

“You translated the last message though.”

“Yeah, and that almost got me killed,” Robin inhaled sharply. “Don’t make me do it again.” Nancy didn’t push, and they sat in the car for a moment in silence, Nancy holding the tape in her hands.

“Murray!” she exclaimed, hitting the dashboard, causing Robin to jump. “Sorry.”

“What about Murray?”

“He speaks Russian.” Robin didn’t answer, but Nancy continued. “We need to go see Murray.” Flashes of the base that Robin had worked to hard to push to the furthest recesses of her mind flooded back in. The doctor, the tools, the needles, the screaming. She closed her eyes.

“Robin.” Nancy whispered, her hand resting gently on Robin’s wrist. Her eyes were level. “I need your help. Please.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so I'm working on a few other projects right now so this is a little on the back burner


End file.
